by ·0 Comments

Dave and I were friends in high school, both members of the AP Bubble for which Great Things were destined. We did Great Things like after school activities and watched movies between Great THings and then went on to Great Things with the thousands of other people in their respective high school analogs who were also destined for Great Things. We both settled out into the lives that were appropriate for us. He as an investment banker and I as a whatever I was until I became a whatever I am. Dave and I got together once every two years or so when he was visiting family.  I was a 405 lb lump of man during the one time I visited him and he met me at the door while my arm was still partly covered in blood and my pants were ripped. Dave also took the most important picture of my life so far.  The Golden Gate bridge is behind me and I have the tallow pallor of a copse.  I was wearing a baby blue oxford, khaki shorts, and a hair cut appropriate for someone in a mental institution. That photo is in my Dropbox folder labeled BigMe.jpg and I try to keep it around as a reminder of where I was.

Dave, to me, hasn’t changed. He’s still smart, he’s still driven, he’s still slightly nervous to talk about his personal life.  He still moves his forearms in and out when his arms are propped on a table and he is speaking.  My opinion of him has risen over time as I overcame a neverrivalry.  I wonder if he views me as equally unchanging.

We met for breakfast near Carnegie Hall and he talked about lady troubles while I talked about my recent unwinding of romance from my life.  He asked me why nothing ever happened between a friend and I and then asked the question again about another friend.  In both cases I simply smiled the smile I give that reveals nothing of how I feel.  Sometimes it’s a smile that says “I’m happy” other times “I hate you” other times “I forget your name”.  Were I to make resolutions, it’d be to stop using that smile except on my enemies.  He asked what I thought of actuarial science and we compared places we liked to go running.  This was the big kid version of the conversations we had before but now they had an added weight.  Our time was more valuable.  The fact that he and I met randomly in New York City, a place home to neither of us, meant something as did the fact that we were both wearing collared shirts and been in bars the night before.  This summer, I will make a good faith effort to meet up with him.

On the train ride back, I chatted with my seatmate who was visiting the US to see her boyfriend for two days before she returned to Germany where her father, an Air Force officer, was stationed.  She would see him next on July 4th.  Her mother was in the armed forces too.  A family of soldiers.

I got back to my house sixteen hours after I thought I would and my dad met me at the door.

Dad: How was where ever you were?
Me: Interesting.
Dad: Good to hear.

by ·0 Comments

Whit Leyenberger is the actor I know. I know no one personally with his level of skill or his drive to make that craft their own and for that I respect him. There is an almost foolhardy bravery to trying to be a professional Shakespearean actor in New York City. He has the tenacity to not be consumed by the tournament-style meatgrinder of theater and I think he will thrive. Tonight he performed as Sir Tobias Belch in a hit and run production of Shakespeare’s 12th Night.  In a hit and run product, the cast members have memorized their parts but have not rehearsed, meaning they’ve never said the lines to one another.  If a character is directed by the script to use a prop, they must choose from items the audience has brought and strewn about the stage.  If violence is called for, a pillow is used.  Finally, for each error made a character gets a point.  If he or she gets three points in one scene, they must wear the cloak of shame (a large piece of display board with the text “IDIOT” on it).  Each character furnished their own costume and one prop, and Whit’s prop was a 24 case of Yuengling. PA pride.

I went to New York City with Whit’s mother and I had some time to kill before I met up with a friend of mine so I walked around Time Square as it seems like I’ve been doing forever.  The place was littered with tourists, current company included, and a group had the most agog face I think I’ve ever seen.

From 2013-01-05 Time Square

There were stilt walkers and people in costumes and people hawking tickets and scarf vendors and the dozens of flavors of people that make this chunk of Manhattan its own thing. I’d like to spend a day here doing a panoramic shot every hour. Each one would seem a different place.

The show started around 7 and the theater was packed. The ticket sales doubled the Accidental Shakespeare Company’s last show and people had to be turned away. The show was a riot.  I snapped away during the show and for the first time in my literary life, felt I could follow what was happening on stage without previously knowing the plot.  Whit drank seven Yuenglings in the course of the show and I think that helped prevent the second act from dragging. The lead was nearly flawless, Whit, the Fool, and Malvolio less so. The comedic timing and usage of stage magic was excellent and the presence of a tampon and condom as proffered props proved appropriate.

The rest of the pictures:

Acting is a craft that I don’t quite get, but tonight’s show got me a little closer.

From 2013-01-05 Hit and Run of 12th Night

After the show Janine and I walked across the street for dinner at the upstairs of a restaurant where the cast and audience were drinking downstairs. I got a caesar salad and Janine barbecue spare ribs much to the confusion of the server. She settled the check, again to the confusion of the server and I waited for a call from Whit’s mother saying that we were leaving. This call never came and I rebooted my phone just in case. My homescreen loaded and I saw that I had missed two calls and four texts from about 30 minutes ago indicating that Whit’s mother didn’t know where I was and would be leaving in a few minutes. By the time I called she was well on her way back to PA but she offered to pick me up from the Trenton Train station the next morning. So for now I was stuck in New York City because I hadn’t received a call from someone located at most 25 feet from me for most of the evening.

Janine departed, the cast departed, Whit and I departed, and Facebook informed me that a friend from San Francisco was in town. We made arrangements to get breakfast the next morning and serendipity shined on my accidental lay-over.

Whit and I made the long walk back to the subway and he talked about his craft. His bravery is astounding. Actuarial science is entirely meritocratic. There are exams, you pass them, you get paid more. You write papers, they are found true, you advance, you get paid more. Acting seems to have no analog. While famous actors tend to be good, good actors are by no means famous. Casting directors are fickle, union politics are byzantine, and this is woven in with the capricious preferences of the public. Whit works hard at his craft and can identify what he thinks is improvement in himself but the lack of a tie between effort and reward would drive me crazy. I guess that’s why I’m not a professional artist and still look with a little envy at the peaks of his professional life compared to mine. At best I have beaten back suffering for a few people for a little while, he can claim to have inspired.

by ·0 Comments

Makers to me are latest embodiment of the cyclical interest in crafts. This incarnation marries modernity with the craft skill set to make either interesting things at scale or in ways previously impossible. For instance, 3D printing has allowed almost anyone with an interesting widget idea to make said widget. Additionally, access to supply chains have allowed new people to make things with previously unavailable parts whether it be cheap micro controllers or GPS chips with what was previously military-level accuracy.

The first presentation I went to was by Seth Goden who commented on the failure of the US education system to produce useful results. He spoke very well without notes and had some good one-liners:

  • If what you’re doing doesn’t have a chance of failure, you’re not making.
  • The person who invented the ship also invented the shipwreck.
  • The first person to put a urinal in a public space was Marcel Deauchamp, an artist. The second was a plumber.
  • If you make something amazing, how dare you not share it.
  • Freelancers are paid to work, entrepreneurs use other people’s money to make something bigger than themselves to make money while they sleep.

During the Question and Answer segment, a person asked him to comment on how the internet had killed the serendipity of the library. He replied that he would do so only if the questioner could say that they’d never gotten lost on wikipedia.

The next presentation involved Bre Pettis and Chris Anderson talking about 3D printing and the lack of a next industrial revolution. Both were interesting and compelling and both agreed that should kickstarter.com stay relevant it will have completely changed how gadget start-ups work.

After this, I walked around the venue a bit and started experiencing camera trouble which put the kibosh on many of the shots I wanted to take.

One display that struck me was the nerdy derby where one could race on a pinewood derby track with any car they wished and even with auxiliary power. There both a hump in the track and overhang bar that prevented abuse of external power sources. This is something I’d like to bring to Scouting in the area.

The final presentation was on The Illuminator which beamed populist messages on surfaces around New York City. My respect of the presenters rose appreciably when I found out that they had day jobs.

On the way home, I executed one of my five most illegal driving maneuvers by making a U-turn in the middle of a six-way intersection.

[flickr album=72157632108716873 num=30 size=Thumbnail]

The ride home was quiet and I had dinner in the sous vide rig in the form of spare ribs. They turned out quite well as indicated by the near reverent silence in which they were eaten.

by ·0 Comments

Whit invited me up to New York City and I obliged his invite.  It was good to see him.

120919-09001-NYC

We chatted.  He left for work, and I walked around.

I’ve picked up some bravery over time when it comes to taking pictures.  I think today showed that.

Watchman

I like the reflective highlights of his suit.

I paced the same set of blocks three or four times, trying to get everything which I never would.  Each pass I saw something new.

Yell

I didn’t much change the saturation here.

 

Meat Plug

I have no idea what cut of meat this is.

Subway Fisher

Sewer fisher

Valve Hats

Hats, oo oh!

Heading south, I took pictures along the high line where I think I got my favorite of the day.

View from the High Line

 

Here’s the rest:

by ·0 Comments

John and Val Hewins and I went to New York City today and caught the train out of Hamilton Station. We took Hamilton to Penn Station, Penn Station to Grand Central, and Grand Central to the New York City Botanical Gardens. On each of these stints I got to either listen to an audiobook or sleep and I gained a new appreciation for not needing to entertain married couples.

Val was a delight to watch at the Gardens as she has the keen mind of trained scientist. She would find a plant with some interesting mechanism and reason backwards why it was that way based on the biological and environmental forces placed on the plant. As Dawkins points out it is not the case that biology makes sense with evolution but biology only makes sense with evolution.

After the Gardens we hit some key sites and wandered south for ramen at Minca Ramen. I asked if we could go to the Big Gay Ice Cream Shop and they hesitantly agreed. When we got there, Val was surprised “wow, it’s actually called the Big Gay Ice Cream shop. I thought you were just being… you.”

Throughout the day I became aware that I walked much faster than Val and John such that were were three minutes late to everything. We were in no rush and their company was nice so it proved to be no bother. Another benefit of John and Val was that we seemed to all enjoy kind of just drinking in our surroundings but wanted to make conversation so we had long stretches of silence punctuated with commentary on what we had just seen since our last silence break.

Best Rose

Rest of the pictures:

[flickr album=72157631490843356 num=20 size=Thumbnail]

by ·0 Comments

A friend and I met up in New York City to take in the Whitney Biennial, one of the largest and most highly regarded shows of contemporary art in America.  I consider myself a fan of art and eagerly awaited the wall of amazing pieces the Whitney would contain.  What ensued was a two and a half hour odyssey of confusion and farce.

Again, I like art well into the Modern period.  I don’t mind Jackson Pollack and enjoy Mark Rothko and even have a soft spot for Kandinsky but the biennial contents were largely an emetic.  Modern art was allowed to not make sense as it reeled from the horrors of World War II.  Contemporary art has no such excuse as “the world is moving too fast” is a complaint not an observation.  The pace of change at current is understandable and while you can talk about your feeling of alienation don’t expect that to be the norm.  Value systems aren’t suddenly breaking down, they’re being challenged, and some people fall into ennui when there is no clear winner.  I find this scenario exciting and neat and there were no pieces that in any way reflected that sentiment which mildly irked me.  There was a lot of cardboard, a lot of string, a lot of blather on placards but nothing that either spoke to me or reflected what I considered to be the “now”.  The reflective pace of art is somewhat slow compared to essays, photographers, and even architecture as the community collects, defines, and then creates.  I will hopefully go to the biennial in two years and see if the contemporary art community has at all gotten its shit together.  If it hasn’t, then figurative art of this kind may be left behind as social commentary.

[flickr album=72157630035878554 num=10 size=Thumbnail]

by ·0 Comments

Whit shares an apartment and his bedroom consists of a bed, a computer, and books that I’ve never read but by authors I really like.  My book shelves are similar.  Together, I think we have a handle on Western Literature but only when we can text each other.  Before he left for work, I watched him play Star Wars: The Old Republic and he force lightning’d bitches like a boss.  Suzie and I were going to do some sight seeing and Whit went to work after we got classic Jersey dollar-a-slice pizza for $2.00 a slice.

6189-NYCday2-20111221.jpg

Whit Pizza Slam

Suzie and mine first stop was at the Museum of the Moving Image in Queens.

6194-NYCday2-20111221.jpg

Out of Nowhere

This unassuming museum houses wings dedicated to each part of the craft of movie making like set-design, acting, prop work, filming, sound and costuming.  The last had a few neat artifacts like the hair from the Bride of Frankenstein.

6203-NYCday2-20111221.jpg

Bride of Frankenstein Wig

Having only known the film in black and white I presumed the wig would also be such.  Nope.

The top floor was taken up with a Jim Henson exhibit which led from his earliest works as a kid through his first animations through commercial work on to his legacy.  The man had a creative output that was simply ridiculous.  No photos were allowed.

We made our way back to Manhattan and visited Rockefeller which was decked out for Christmas.

6262-NYCday2-20111221And2more-Edit.jpg

Rockin' Balls

Onward to the giant Christmas tree, World of Nintendo, and Legoworld, each of which had their holiday spin.  At World of Nintendo I took an obligatory peace sign shot but it was far away using a 200mm lens.  No one at all thought I was being creepy.

6300-NYCday2-20111221.jpg

I Was Forced to Take This

I had hoped to get a Christmas concert while in New York and there were a few but various things held us back.  My favorite impediment was that the Lincoln Center Concert (always travel with a pair of slacks and a tie) came with a free candy cane martini which required showing ID and that ruled out Suzie.  At Time Square there was a wandering church group that was singing.  We ran into them a few times and we shuffled about the Square.  I will consider them my Christmas concert.    I also got what is probably my favorite pano of the city as well.

Time Square Pano

It’s big and will probably print nicely.

Our pen-ultimate stop was the main branch of the New York Public Library forever guarded by the lions Patience and Fortitude.  Inside, someone had apparently made a large donation and their name was being immortalized in a marble block.  I had no idea that marble engraving was still done my hand.

6439-NYCday2-20111221.jpg

Craftsman

Our final stop was to see a movie, Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows.  Not bad.

by ·0 Comments

Manhattan, like ancient Jericho, is a city with a perimeter that one rises into.  One climbs into midtown regardless of entry method with the possible exception of helicopter.  Some routes into DC do this in contrast with say Baltimore or Chicago or Philadelphia where one often descends into the city square like Dante’s Pilgrim entering Dis.  Not to compare Philadelphia with a literal hell but I do think there’s something to be said for perspective.  The rest of New York City can act like an abattoir as it grinds you down.  I experienced both the first and second type of entrance as I headed towards the wrong 112th street and then had to enter Manhattan from a low-slung eastern bridge.  We circled Whit’s restaurant, he jumped in and we sped towards Target, the suburban outpost, where Wanda would stay for the next two days.

It was good seeing Whit again, and it took us a bit to remember how to talk to one another.  In his eyes, I’ve achieved some sort of success and in my eyes he’s achieved some sort of timelessness.  I an envious of his ability to live in a seeming perpetual now that he fills with his attention in a way my constant state of semi-distraction seems never to do except during argument or intimacy.  Suzie had found a ramen place she wanted to go to that was almost textbook hole-in-the-wall and we all benefited from her investigations.

6024-NYCDay1-20111220.jpg

Defferent Kind of Restaurant

Ramen is an example of “anything becomes deep on inspection”.  While the dish is notionally “Chinese noodles + broth” the variants are ridiculous.  Wars have been fought over Minca Ramen’s non-canon tea-boiled eggs vs. Hide-Chan’s broth and in this war no one loses.

Here is what I was served:

6067-NYCDay1-20111220.jpg

Ramen Porn

I got what I can only describe as an obscene amount of it on me.  I slurp in a way that Asian lips, or any civilized person for that matter, don’t seem to and smiled at being able to hide my graceless among the rain drops on my shirt.  The broth was rich, the pork represented the Platonic ideal of tender, and the noodles themselves were devilishly hard to eat.  This bowl showed to me that every culture has its soul food.

Back out in the rain we walked around the new-community-a-block areas of SoHo, past The Big Gay Ice Cream Parlor, a store dedicated the Golden Girls and misrepresentation and a statue of the Predator made entirely of recycled motorcycle parts.  It’s like the city is so dense that ideas buckle under their own weight and the springs of the mind’s machinations bear our own insanity unto us.  We walked, and walked some more and stopped for frozen yogurt.  They had egg nog yogurt, which I sometimes like, and I placed a drop in my bowl.  I had it, was unimpressed, and filled the bowl with other flavors.  Ever damn spoonful after held the taint of that cursed egg nog like the trichloroanisole that causes the cork taint that can destroy the finest wines.  Ugh.

We kept walking and on the way back I got a nice picture of Suzie.

6116-NYCDay1-20111220.jpg

Suzie Surrounded by City

In white balanced light her hair against her jacket brought watermelon to mind.  Another example of how she’s a harbinger of kaddosh somehow made flesh.

Back at Whit’s we played board games and Whit and I caught up.  Very few nouns, a lot of verbs, and midway through this turned into me railing about how long it had been since happiness was the dominant force of joy in my life and it was nice to have Whit there.  Our good friends make us strong, our great friends allow us to be weak.  Thank you, Whit and Suzie.  I inflated my mattress which took up most of the living room and Suzie slept on the futon.  We were in the city, it was raining, and I was tired.

by ·0 Comments

Whit Leyenberger is not just a friend of mine and was not just part of a cohort of friends that has incriminating evidence about me, but someone with whom I hope to find a kind of timeless friendship.  Whenever we catch up, there’s no “why didn’t you call” or “so how’s your family” but a near seamless resumption of whatever narrative we had last worked usually beginning with “remember the time we”.  It had been a solid two years since I saw him and I was curious to see what the intervening time had done.  I was used to the 9 month gap between summer camp seasons, but now, more than one year had changed.  We met somewhere near 14th street and I was glad to see his shining face again:

From 2011-09-09 to 10 People Shots

We had paninis for breakfast and talked a lot.  In there, I learned that he had a girlfriend of three years, worked at an Applebee’s in Harlem where he was the 0.75% of the staff that was white, had a brief bout as an honest to goodness starving artist, and that I could could crash on his floor in the future which very much pleased me.  We parted ways, returned, to the apartment we had rented, and made our egress from NYC.

All the People Pictures:

by ·0 Comments

Suzie, Mike, Kacey, and I took the subway located immediately beneath the building in which we were staying to within a few blocks of where we were to have lunch.  At some point, Suzie bolted.  We caught up with her finding she’d seen the MasterChef contestant Derrick Prince and wanted to say hello.

From 2011-09-09 to 10 People Shots

In another bit of New York coincidence, lunch was delayed as the person we were meeting ran into her kindergarten teacher. (Appropriately) small world.

From 2011-09-09 to 10 People Shots

After lunch, Mike, Kacey, and I went to the New York Botanical Gardens and saw that my car had been ticketed.  I was clearly beyond the “NO PARKING” sign, but only after some Googling did I find that “NO STANDING” includes “NO PARKING”.  Thanks for explaining, New York City.

The Botanical Gardens were again gorgeous.

[flickr album=72157627550412087 num=30 size=Thumbnail]

That evening, we met up with Jon, a TI member whose life consists of extended bouts of the amazing interspersed with work as waiter and meeting Internetfolk.  He treated us to a lovely dinner in Little Italy followed by gelati.  At this rate, I’ll run into Jon in 2013 after he’s won the Nobel Prize in Chinese Fencing.